Satan, The Imaginary, And Halloween Re-do
An evaluation of how Christians are to think about Halloween.
This article has appeared here at Spec Faith in the past, but the celebration of Halloween continues to be a point of contention which I think a site about speculative literature should address. Consequently here is a revised version of a post that first appeared here six years ago.
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Introduction.
Every year around this time Christians begin a discussion about celebrating Halloween, but perhaps speculative writers, more so. The conversation is justifiable, especially in light of the fact that Halloween has become a highly commercial, and therefore, visible, holiday in the US. As a result, television programs, movies, and certainly commercials have some tie in to the weird, the supernatural.
For Christians, there seems to be a great divide when it comes to celebrating Halloween. Are we taking up the cause of the enemy if we carve a pumpkin and hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters? Should we offer alternatives — a harvest festival instead of a haunted mansion — for our church activities? Should we seize the moment and build good will in our community by joining in wholeheartedly, or should we refuse to recognized the holiday, turn off the porch lights, and decline to answer the door when masquerading children arrive?
Satan.
As I see it, there are two critical issues that dictate our response to Halloween. The first is our attitude toward Satan and demons. Is he (and are they) real? How big a threat is he? How are we to respond/react to him?
Scripture gives clear answers to these questions. Satan is a real being, one referred to as the father of lies (see John 8:44) and as a being masquerading as an angel of light (see 2 Cor. 11:14).
In response to something Spec Faith co-contributor Stephen Burnett said in his article “Shooting at Halloween pumpkins”, I laid out an account of Old Testament references to Satan and his forces. For those who missed it, here, in part, is that comment:
Satan was abundantly active, starting in a certain garden where he brought his devilish behavior before Man and his wife. Another vivid depiction of Satan’s activity is detailed in the book of Job.
In Egypt, Moses faced Pharaoh’s conjurers. Certainly their source of power was not God, yet they duplicated a number of Moses’s miracles.
On the way to the Promised land, God instructed the people “They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot” (Lev. 17:7 a). Forty years later in Moses’s farewell speech, he described how the parents of the current generation had behaved:
They sacrificed to demons who were not God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers did not dread.
(Deut. 32:17)
I think it’s clear that the gods Israel continued to worship — and the ones worshiped by the neighboring people — were demons. Hence the admonishing to excise sorcery from their midst.
Unfortunately they didn’t obey but continued to involve themselves in demon worship:
But they mingled with the nations
And learned their practices,
And served their idols,
Which became a snare to them.
They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons
(Ps. 106:35-37)
Then there was this verse in I Chronicles: “Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.”
I could give you verses from Daniel too, showing that Satan was active in standing against his prayers, and that he was in fact “the prince” of, or had cohorts who were, known locations. Isaiah, too, and Zechariah had prophecies involving Satan.
The point is, Satan was very active in the Old Testament.
Scripture is also clear that Satan is a threat. He is described as an adversary and as a lion seeking to devour (see 1 Peter 5:8). He’s the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), the tempter (Mark 1:13), the one who snatches away the Word of God (Mark 4:15), the one who can bind (Luke 13:16) and destroy (1 Cor. 5:5) and torment the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7), who comes against us with schemes 2 Cor. 2:11), who demands to sift some (Luke 22:31) and possess others (John 13:27), who hinders believers in their ministry (1 Thess. 2:18).
Satan is real and he is a threat, but he is not greater than God. In fact his doom is sure. Scripture instructs us to be on the alert against him, to stand against him, to resist him, but Satan is a defeated foe (Col 2:15 and Rom. 16:20). We are never told to fear him.
The Imaginary.
The second critical issue when it comes to deciding how we are to deal with Halloween is our understanding of the imaginary. Dragons, vampires, cyclops, werewolves, zombies, goblins, orcs, trolls, and such are imaginary creatures from the pages of literature. Witches and wizards that wave magic wands and/or fly around on brooms are imaginary. Ghosts that float about like bedsheets and are friendly or who pop in and out of sight at will or move things about with a word are imaginary.
Are Christians ever instructed in Scripture to stand against the imaginary?
On the other hand, most of us recognize that these various creatures are or have been representative of evil. The question then becomes, are we handling evil correctly by giving attention to the things that have been used to represent it?
Along that line of thinking, I believe it’s fair to ask if we should avoid representations of snakes, because Satan entered one, lions because Scripture said he is one, and angels because he appears as one.
The greater question, it seems to me is whether or not dressing up in costumes of creatures that have an association with evil might trivialized evil, much the way the “red devil with horns and a pitch fork” image of Satan trivialized him so that fewer and fewer people believe he is a real being — not a good thing at all if we are to stand against him.
Halloween.
These two issues — what we believe about Satan and what we believe about the imaginary — collide in this one holiday. But there’s another element that must enter into the discussion because ultimately, what we do on Halloween is done in front of the watching world. We need to ask, what does our culture believe about Halloween?
As other comments to Stephen’s post reveal, some studying the holiday see its historical underpinnings — either pagan Celtic practices or early Church traditions. But what do ordinary people today see? Are our neighbors celebrating evil? Or are they having fun dressing up as something spooky? Are they going to haunted houses because they want to invoke the dead or because they want a shot of roller-coaster-ride-like adrenaline?
While we can’t deny that a fringe element — perhaps even a growing fringe element — see Halloween as a celebration of evil, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that the majority of people in the US view it as nothing more than a reason to party. The activities are consistent with the day but have little or no meaning, much the way most people celebrate Christmas.
How we as Christians celebrate Halloween, then, hinges on these three factors — our view of Satan, our understanding of the imaginary, and what we want to say to our culture.
Is there one right way of doing Halloween? I don’t believe so. I do believe we should avoid pointing the finger at other Christians and saying that they’re doing it wrong. Paul speaks to this issue in Colossians 2: “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath Day” (v. 16). Those who choose to celebrate are just as clearly not to point the finger at those who choose not to celebrate.
The only way we can insure that Satan has his day is by our disunity, our unloving attitude, our angry arguments over whether or not we celebrate Halloween.
This post first appeared here at Spec Faith in October 2011.
I don’t celebrate Halloween, nor participate in any aspect of it, simply because it is a religious holiday for a religion I do not believe in nor follow. I don’t participate in it for the same reason I don’t do Kwanzaa or Ramadan.
Some might argue that it is no longer a ~religious~ holiday, but I would counter that so long as even one human being knows its pagan religious roots, it will continue to be a day belonging to that pagan religion. And even if every living human forgot its roots, would the spiritual forces of evil conveniently relinquish their hold on what was always theirs?
As a follower of Jesus Christ, participation in such a blatantly non-/anti-Christian celebration is wrong and harmful, not only to our “weaker brothers” but also to our non-believing brothers. The parallel to eating meat sacrificed to idols that Paul discussed in 1 Corinthians 8 (also in Acts 15:29 and 21:25, reinforcing the fact that this was a serious issue), is a near-perfect comparison.
Although our freedom in Christ sets us free to do anything not directly immoral and forbidden by God, we are not to let our exercise of freedom cause a weaker brother to stumble. Participation in the things of Halloween sends a mixed message that could cause a less-mature Christian, and certainly a non-believer, to stumble.
Roger, thanks for sharing your conviction and the rationale behind it. You are certainly not alone in taking this approach. I do hope you understand that other Christian brothers and sisters don’t see it that way, and that the difference isn’t cause to break fellowship.
BTW, I have sort of a “thing” about the meat sacrificed to idols issue. As the verses you noted from Acts indicate, this issue was by no means a “follow your conscience” kind of thing. Those early church leaders discussed and prayed and sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The issue is also something that came up to the letter to the church in Pergamum (Rev. 2:14)—“But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who … put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality.”
Far from being a matter that is unclear, eating meat offered to idols was a definite NO. What was at issue in Paul’s letters—first in the one you mentioned, and also in Romans is a) why the Christians were to abstain and b) how to look at a situation of someone who was so concerned with not eating meat to idols that he chose not to eat meat at all, or to investigate where every piece of meat came from, and even passed along his findings to other.
The last scenario would be the closest to the debate over celebrating Halloween, I think, except we have no Scriptural directive not to participate in cultural activities. I think what we as believers do here really is up to each one of us to let the Holy Spirit lead us. And I think it’s good for us to think it out, to have reasons for what we do, not just to be blown along by the wind of what everyone else is doing.
Becky